Soviet Jewry

A leading Russian Jewish organization has been rocked by unrest in its leadership. Several top members of the Russian Jewish Congress voted Oct. 6 to oust the group’s head, Vladimir Slutsker. Slutsker, a banker and member of the Federation Council, Russia’s upper house of Parliament, refused to step down, saying that only the group’s presidium… More ▸

Residents of this small Black Sea resort town like to call their city “the Jerusalem of the Crimea.” They have good reason: Evpatoria, population 120,000, is home to about 800 Karaites, members of a sect that broke off from mainstream Judaism in eighth-century Iraq. Karaites accept the Torah and celebrate most Jewish holidays, but they… More ▸

The ceremonial openings of two state-of-the-art Jewish community centers in the former Soviet Union have ushered in a new page in the history of two communities in the former Soviet Union. The new facilities in St. Petersburg, Russia and in Kishinev, Moldova, were built by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee with funds raised primarily… More ▸

Government officials and Jewish leaders here held out hope until the last minute that Viktor Yuschenko would show up for the grand reopening of the city’s historic synagogue. After all, Sumy, an industrial city of 300,000 residents in northeastern Ukraine, is Yuschenko’s hometown. It would have been quite a coup for the city’s 1,000-strong Jewish… More ▸

Alexandra Kerzhenevich, a math teacher in her mid-50s and a lifelong resident of St. Petersburg, was never very religious but she has always felt a deep connection to her Jewish roots. So when her father died last year, she wanted to bury him next to her mother in the family plot in the city’s historic… More ▸

Ukrainian Jewish artist Mykhailo Kolomey painted churches, made theatrical costumes and even ran a local TV channel before he turned to making enormous, nearly life-size dolls of well-known figures a year ago. “I’ve been everything during my life, and now I have reverted to childhood,” the 54-year-old Odessa native says. Seventy of his dolls, portraying… More ▸

The 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster is still haunting the lives of thousands of Ukrainians living in the area near the now-defunct power plant. In addition to ongoing health and environmental issues, which the Ukrainian government is trying to resolve with the help of the international community, many of those who formerly worked at the plant… More ▸

Jewish leaders in Ukraine are protesting what they consider authorities’ inadequate response to a recent spate of anti-Semitic propaganda. Ukrainian nationalists recently asked President Viktor Yuschenko to open criminal proceedings against “Judeo-Nazis” in Ukraine, singling out Chabad rabbis and the main work of Chabad literature, the Tanya. In an open letter to Yuschenko, members of… More ▸

Young Jews in the former Soviet Union are being trained by both the Chabad and Reform movements to become rabbis in a region where there is a shortage of Jewish spiritual leaders. Here are a few of their stories: A Belarus native, Tanya Sakhnovich grew up with Holocaust survivor grandparents who whispered about their Judaism… More ▸

Despite their ideological differences, the Reform and Chabad movements in the former Soviet Union share a shortage of buildings and spiritual leaders to serve their growing communities. “We have 12,000 Jews affiliated with us in Ukraine, but what we do not have in Kiev is a physical presence,” says Rabbi Alexander Dukhovny, a Reform movement… More ▸